Legless
by springandbysummerfall
Summary: After Cell, a few of Vegeta's priorities in life have been forced to change, and for once, he's ready to make the adjustment. However, Bulma is not. Still bitter about being rejected, she's just trying to live a life of single motherhood without losing face. Even as they can't seem to meet in the middle, they somehow tumble into their old romance...and end up reigniting the flame.
1. Chapter 1

She didn't know when things between she and Vegeta had petered out, but, somewhere between him walking in on her on the toilet, pregnancy test trembling in her hands, and his slapping the 'LIFTOFF' button on Capsule 4 before the sun even had a chance to set that very day- -certainly his _proudest_ moment, she'd grumbled- -well...petered out it had.

At one point, before her body had gone and released one teeny tiny, rebellious egg against both she and her birth control pill's wishes, Bulma had loved the drama between them, _craved_ the build up imbued in their every moment, the spark in their whole deliciously ribald relationship. Wouldn't any girl?

The excitement of each pause between notes of their heckling, her breathlessness as the crescendo of her baited passions carried her forward into the unknown between them. Was it like a high drama opera? A tragedy in its typical, classic formula:

Girl meets boy, girl falls for boy, boy is hopelessly in love with another (in this case, himself)...

...girl gets knocked up, boy checks out for good, and then, after a terribly awkward crying and self immolation scene, it's lights out, curtains drawn.

An end that everyone knows is coming, and yet one the actors, inevitably, are blind to.

Or, perhaps, instead of that morose and cliche swan dive, instead of a dismal end to a pretty sorry relationship, what they had had was more of a caper, hosted, rather, in the deliberate swing of her twenty-something hips, his fingers tracing over them as he stalled stalking past her in the hallway, his hooked smile cast in her direction at dinner time informing her that he may just be topping off dinner with her tonight. So maybe it was more like free form jazz? Spontaneous, passionate, reckless, daring, and completely inscrutable. Seriously. Who gets jazz?

Maybe it was! Say, she would be the clarinet, then! She'd always wanted to play the clarinet. That beautiful, throaty woodwind instrument, its lowest registers haunting and velvety, just like her-well, maybe on a good day.

Vegeta, that arrogant, frustrating bastard, had to be, undoubtedly, a brass instrument. Yes, he was the brass instrument that sometimes made everyone's eyes cross with its take-no-prisoners volume. The clarinet had a completely different tone- -could sometimes be silky, beckoning the listener with its rich control, carrying uniquely in a sea of soft woodwinds. And other times- -most times, who was she kidding- -the clarinet just wasn't played right and it was shrill, shrill, shrill.

Vegeta, she decided, was a saxophone, dark, intimidating, and alluring, almost created just to set the listener on edge with either frustration or sensuality and with complete and enthusiastic disregard for how the listener feels about that.

And yet, he was no one trick pony, her sulky, jet eyed saxophonist. He was a whole range of sounds, even if no one else could pick it out of all those sharp tones but her.

Sometimes she could pull from him those coarse growls from the back of the throat that made her tremble like she were some naive moon-faced maiden watching some wild, bucking musician in the back of a smoky bar. Sometimes she'd conjure up his bluesy history, pull from him memories he'd long thought dead, and she might, just might get to hear a new song, vulnerable in its history...Many times he was the kind of artist who played with infuriating wit and aggressive, challenging overtones, causing her head to spin like she was in dire need of an exorcism because she wasn't sure which cutting insult she should start blowing up at first. He was all control, and stamina, had the grit of a true musician's diaphragm, his imposing timbres butting up against her more floaty woodwind. He was always seeming to play two songs at once, and she never knew quite where he stood, except it was never still, that was for sure.

And, sometimes, the saxophonist's heated cadences butted against her walls and, instead of fortifying the barricade she'd built masterfully around her to keep him out, she surrendered, she succumbed to that flutter-tonguing of any masterful musician against the most private parts of her.

Well, the clarinet goes first in this lark, and it _has_ to have its solo, right? Its voice _has_ to be _heard_.

The clarinetist informs the saxophonist several times just to _relax_, and that the clarinet's voice is _crucial _when it comes to the rules and atmosphere at the seat of Capsule Corporation. But, of course, the saxophone thinks the damned score is written all for him, and that it's acceptable if the foundation is shaking beneath them when he is playing.

It evolved quickly from a disagreement of principles to a battle of wills. Of course, the clarinet has a more elegant, refined sound than the saxophone, and for that reason it might just organically end up taking a little more time with its solo, which the saxophonist disapproves of. The saxophonist does _not_ want the clarinetist to lead.

To make a long story short, the saxophonist and clarinetist had no patience for the other's tone anymore, and, welp, here they were. Not even in separate dressing rooms, pouting in front of those neat, moody vanity mirror lights- -No, they were not even ignoring each other in the same damned city. The musicians had moved beyond thoroughly loathing each other into a special, skillful kind of complete disregard that both were quite content with continuing.

No slowly paced, quiet decrescendo of a relationship here. Just a roaring fight, a plain ol' "I'm out of here," and a walk out the door to find new things, better things, or just space-y things, seen from the inside of the concave windshield of a spaceship's cabin.

And that was where they were as a couple as the fate of the world was being decided by a motley bunch of martial artists and a gaggle of robots.

No, she couldn't put her finger on the exact moment, couldn't draw her finger over the calendar to rest contemplatively against the number of a day which birthed the exact second things had fallen apart irreparably between them.

And _now, _NOW he was back in her house. Having tumbled into his old bed after their final battle with Cell not unlike some smelly, couch surfing, pointy haired leech. But this was no common moocher, oh no-complicated didn't even begin to describe the man presently sleeping face down, dead-weight crushing into his pillow and, even now, still stubbornly alive.

She didn't know when things had gotten beyond control between them, fled right out of sight, sorely incapable of being dissected under her microscope. The thing between them was as obstinate and inexplicable to her prodding as they were to each other.

All that positively remained of him in her life was the occasional frowny face from her bright eyed, amazing baby boy who was his own little force of nature. And, of course, the question that she was doomed to answer, over and over again...**T**he **Q**uestion, which always went something like this:

"Oh, he is just so sweet! And where is the father?"

Eyebrows furrowed with concentration, fingers ticking off bullet points and mutters not unlike her father's as she tried to piece together a not so smart-alecky explanation for what the heck her life was like as a single parent, and it never really got easier, every time she got The Question.

No, she couldn't put a finger on just when the dance between them surged in energy, set them ablaze, and then flared furiously with new intent until it burned their passion for the other into a crisp. The End, if it could really be called an end now that they had a burping, farting, giggling little monster between them. It had been a forte of screaming matches and drumming fury- -_How dare you just ignore me when I tell you that I'm pregnant- -How dare you get pregnant- -How dare _you?! Not one of those calming, pan flute type albums you pick up on the fly at a whole food's store. But understand it or not, the enigma, the _migraine_ that lay on her parent's guest bed _right now_ that was so emotionally unavailable and self involved that she could just stare death into him right now with the frustration that was building in her just looking at his backside- -

He was back, and as always with him, it was just something she had to deal with. Their finale, evidently, had not yet come.

/\\\\\\\\\\\

AN: Here's my attempt at getting back in the game.


	2. Chapter 2

She was ninety nine percent confident her house was haunted.

And what do you do when your daily life is troubled by the paranormal? Was there someone you could call? Some 1-800 number in the yellow pages? Maybe she could catch it if she stayed up and watched the hour long infomercials that ran through the latest hours of the night.

She stared down at her old cord-style office phone, a dusty and pastel yellow relic, its kinky cord spilling over the back of her desk, and she wondered if she really should call somebody.

She needed a priest, a rabbi, that hippie from the store downtown that smelled nauseatingly of incense. Something.

She had a fleeting urge to ask her Saiyan to sniff around and see what he thought, but tossed it right out the window, because, well, pride, obviously.

It had been almost two weeks since she'd found him passed out face down in his pillow, in the same tattered suit that Eighteen had snapped his humerus in, just bleeding into her good sheets. Two weeks, and she hadn't properly seen him again. Just traces of him. A missing roast in the fridge. A wet towel thrown carelessly beside the hamper- -_couldn't even make it into the hamper, _she'd grumbled- -and, occasionally...this was the creepy part...things rearranged on her desk in her lab downstairs.

Was it him? Why on Earth would he be down there in the first place?

It was more likely she was dealing with a poltergeist.

She was notoriously disorganized, she was willing to admit. Yes, she left paperwork sprawled from here to Tallahassee, yes, she had a few more lipstick-stained coffee cups growing mold on her desk than was appropriate, and yes- -cue eye roll- -she could probably clean up some of these spare nuts and bolts that everyone kept tripping on when they came down to visit.

She knew that it was likely she'd just misplaced something and forgot where she'd set it. Sure. But this was different. This was _more_.

The first time caused her to pause a second, and then resume life. The second time, her eyes narrowed in suspicion, her fingers still over her drawer where she kept her firearm. The third time, she threw a saddle and some reins over her paranoia and went with it, rigging a camera system into the knick knacks and picture frames that formed a hodgepodge wall on the back of her desk with spare wire from her desk drawers.

Was this some unhappy Capsule Corp employee, trying to find dirt on her or sell blueprints under the table for some hush-hush CC project? ...Did Capsule Corp even have a hush-hush project?

Although she was a left brainer through and through, she was also an engineer, innovative by definition. Her father's nutty improvising and visionary wackiness was imprinted right smack on her DNA, and, with that, came a little bit of creativity.

In this case, even though she knew _sensibly_ that her ghost was likely someone with a grudge (or a death wish), she couldn't escape the hairs on the back of her neck and the suspicion that this was somehow _supernatural _or something. This was important somehow. Bravo getting past her Saiyan guard dog, but then again, Vegeta's reaction to her pregnancy had been to pull a Narcissus and dive head first into that famous reflecting pool, and so he was likely blind to anything but his own twitching pecs at this point.

Did she fear for her or Trunks' safety? Well, yes, kind of, a little bit, maybe. Because each time the intruder opened the lab door- -the creak undeniable- -Bulma would lean forward, ready for the creep's face to slide across the TV screen as he slid into her office chair and start opening her drawers- - -

And each time, the sonofabitch would turn over her photo frames and knick knacks one by one, dominoes falling in tandem with her jaw inching further and further towards the floor, and the chair creaked, once again, invisibly, with someone's weight.

She was about to tear out her hair.

It was in this frustrated, wacky cloud of anxiety that she was trying to get a spoonful of mashed peaches into Trunks' mouth. Two dozen empty jars spread out before her- -out of Trunks' curious reach, of course.

This wasn't the first time she lamented her half-Saiyan's appetite, but with the grim purpose of any overtaxed parent, she soldiered on.

The problem wasn't that he refused to eat the peaches- -four peach jars licked clean were testimonial to that. No, the problem was that he had to also wear it like _war paint_.

It was a tragedy of the highest level.

1. She watches the spoon enter his mouth cleanly with grim anticipation. Her mouth parts with hope

2. His chubby fingers float upwards towards his mouth as her heart sinks

3. Trunks lets the orange goo dribble into his round hand with the help of his little shoveling tongue and then his hand squeeeezes, baby food squirting from his thick knuckles. And just as she groans, he pops the slick spit up peaches back into his mouth for a second round, and finishes his performance by smearing the remainder of it across his cheeks, radiating the happiness that is only felt by a Saiyan in front of food

4. and then lets out a shriek once it gets in his eye.

Every. Time.

She dropped her head into her arms on the edge of the high chair and whimpered soundlessly.

She felt Trunks' sticky hand pat her hair supportively.

Their was a knock as one of the cupboard doors closed behind her, and she looked up in that direction, harried.

And met Vegeta's alarmed stare.

He gripped a turkey leg with one hand and an oversized can of pumpkin in the other, and her eyes ticked over the items with puzzlement.

And then jumped reflexively as Trunks walloped what remained of the jar of peaches, sending goo flying through the room and into her face, the jar crashing against the wall amid a string of giggles. She sputtered and wiped her eyes, causing most of it to just settle into the hair at her temples and later form a crust in her bangs.

When she opened her eyes, Vegeta was gone.

Irrationally, she felt a surge of anger towards him. Maybe it was just that he still had yet to say a word to her since Goku's death, maybe it was that she was a hairs-breadth away from having a stress-induced meltdown, and, somehow, he was to blame. She was just suddenly _on fire _with indignation.

She jumped from her seat and spun around just to catch his profile cross the lawn through the window panes, the back door already clicking shut softly.

"Oh no you don't," she growled, drawing Trunks from his high chair and storming after him, oblivious to the sticky orange mess splattered over her and smeared across Trunks' face like a bad case of jaundice.

"Wait!" She called, trailing after him hurriedly, her sneakers sinking into thick summer grass.

She saw him freeze and his shoulders hunch, and she only had a second to feel insulted before coming up on his side, Trunks bobbing at her side. Now that she had him in her crosshairs, her resentment curiously flew out the window, replaced instead by the subject burning in her mind's eye.

"Wait," she huffed, standing now in front of him, looking up into his face. His eyes were walled off, expressive if only for their no-holds-barred contempt for everything they landed on- - -the eyes she'd been dealt since they'd discovered she was pregnant. But his face was, uncharacteristically, drawn.

"Vegeta, I need your help," she said, before nearly retching at her choice of words. Her face scrunched up. "Well, maybe not your _help_, but your advice, or, your...whatever." She waved her hand dismissively. "Someone has been breaking into my labs and pawing around my stuff," she explained, trying to keep the worry out of her voice.

She really should have thought this through, she lamented a bit belatedly. She didn't want to seem incapable in front of the Saiyan...especially _this_ Saiyan. He'd just twist the knife deeper, probably, although what else did she have to lose?

His eyes widened fractionally, the turkey leg wavering in his knuckles, but she pressed on, knowing she was fighting time, his already miserly patience dwindling. "I tried rigging up security cameras, but somehow, the bastard knew! I'm starting to become really concerned. There's all sorts of security-sensitive information in my lab, but oddly enough, nothing has been breached. _Except_ for all my personal stuff... my pictures of Trunks, stuff I've collected over time from my adventures with Goku-san. It all just gets shuffled around or winds up missing, and it's _really_ creeping me out."

They stared at one another helplessly for a countless moment.

He still had the same impossibly dark eyes, eyes she used to fall into when he shared her bed, sprawled out over his wide chest. Still the same chiseled jaw, clenched, making her want to chastise him for grinding his teeth like she used to. His chest drifted up and down subtly as he stared at her, and her lips drew down softly in a runaway moment of memory. For a moment- -oh Kami! Just a hungry moment- -her heart unthawed fractionally, and her gaze drew across his features with the softest sigh, the salty taste of the skin of his jaw against her lips remembered suddenly, violently.

His eyes narrowed and his mouth parted as if he were finally about to reply, but she recognized that look. No good could come from that look. No good could come from this man. With pulse-racing self-preservation, her heart cinched up, locked up, and drew all its bridges upwards into itself, shuttering itself from the world.

"Look, I'm not asking you to go out of your way for us or anything, or good lord, _acknowledge us _or anything of that nature," she snapped. "I'm just worried about my son and I's safety, and I thought maybe you could pass by one night and see if you could catch this guy. Just corner him for me. I could take it from there."

He snorted softly, gaze drifting, turning fractionally away from her as if actually thinking about it.

_Thinking of insulting my ability to defend myself and the whole inexplicable reason I'm still alive, no doubt. _

She bared her teeth in humiliation. "Nevermind, I'll do it myself!"

She spun around angrily without bothering to wait for his rejection and marched back towards the back door. She clutched Trunks maybe a little too tightly, making him squirm.

She was so tired of playing second banana with him! Her mind was a growing storm, buzzing and lashing with fury. Why did she even try? Did she never learn?

The back door stuck in the summer heat, and she tugged on it in frenzied frustration. When it finally budged, she let out a loud "Ugh!," punctuating it with a kick to the doorjamb.

"I give up!" She hollered out to the spacious, empty seat of Capsule Corporation, the echoes causing Trunks to glance around for the source with wide eyes. She placed her other hand on her hip with a steely frown.

"If you need something done, you gotta do it yourself," she murmured to herself, letting the liquid afternoon sun wash over her silently.

With renewed strength, she slid Trunks from under her arm to rest on her belly, leaning back to accommodate his weight and plant a big kiss right on his moist lips. He blinked with surprised delight.

"Don't worry, kid, mama's got this." She wiggled her nose against his and smiled. "Mama's bringing out the _big_ guns."

\\\

Trunks was sound asleep when she tip toed from the nursery and gestured at her mother in the adjoining second floor living room that she was headed to bed. Bunny smiled warmly and waved her on, turning back to her evening dramas in her fuzzy pink robe and curlers before she had to join her husband in bed.

Bulma padded to her room giddily.

Tonight was the night she caught the culprit!

It had been a long day at the Capsule Corp headquarters downtown, and Bulma had barely had time to scarf down a plate of cold noodles before getting Trunks, whiny and rubbing his groggy eyes, into the bath and into bed. Her heels clacked on the hard wood of her spacious bedroom, her lab coat drifting against her calves. It had been a long day, but it was going to be capped off _wonderfully_. She might even set off some of the fireworks stored in one of the lab closets and down a pint before Trunks inevitably needed to be rocked back to sleep. Screw it! It was Friday night, and she was in control of her life- -not some thief sneaking around in the night, not even some hunky Saiyan freeloader. She smiled in anticipation.

She fluffed her hair and strode into her expansive closet, where a concealed safe stood innocuously in the far corner, for all intents and purposes looking like an oversized jewelry cabinet. Smile still curling around her teeth, she placed her long fingers against the screen, neatly manicured nails splayed, and was rewarded with the pop of the lock.

Picking her favorite firearm was nearly as difficult as deciding what to wear in the morning, but without much to-do, she plucked one of her older models from the bottom rack, a black long rifle whose weight was solid and familiar in her palms.

Bulma Briefs just happened to be armed to the teeth.

Ah yes, it took her back to the good old days, hunting dragon balls and avoiding Red Ribbon and little imperialists with Napoleonic complexes.

She snorted softly. Nothing much had changed.

Bulma used her teeth to open the bag of ammo, careful not to upset her mani or lip stain, and carefully loaded the magazine, one by one.

She had no intention of shooting anyone tonight; _however_, she couldn't wait to scare the pants off the unsuspecting sneak. Loading the firearm was just a precaution, but she had to admit, the rifle's familiar weight was doing all sorts of things to her self-confidence.

What a freeing night this was going to be!

Bulma sank the magazine into the butt of the gun decisively.

\\\

Only when she kicked open the lab door with her glossy nude heel and swung around the corner, rifle aimed dead center at the offender's chest, did she experience reservations.

Vegeta sat leisurely in her office chair, arms folded behind his head, and swiveled his body with his toes just enough to reveal one eyebrow creeping steadily upwards.

Her shooting stance wavered, and the muzzle drooped towards the floor. "Vegeta?"

Without thought, she dropped the magazine from the gun before resting them on the top of a file cabinet.

Her knuckles found closure on her hips. "What on Earth are you doing here?"

The ghost in her leather chair looked up at her with wide, haunted eyes, curled his hand around a photo of Trunks, Yamcha and Puar at the carnival that always came round in early, early Spring, when the daffodils weren't quite awake and the heat of the sun was still tender.

It was just Vegeta, her ghost, trying to find somewhere to tread.

"Can't a Prince get a little privacy?" His voice echoed hoarsely through the lab.

She drew near him soundlessly, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, waiting.


	3. Chapter 3

The question that had gone through her mind more times than she could count since Vegeta had shown up on her figurative doorstep to beat Goku to a pulp was, once again, replaying through her mind.

How on Earth did his logic work?!

Sometimes, when she was in the shower absently shaving her legs, or nodding off, strung between those few minutes of untamed thinking and sleep, she would...how did she admit this without sounding crazy...

...make Vegeta an online dating profile in her mind's eye.

It was just something she did that she got a kick out of and it put her to sleep, okay?!

There was no question of what kind of profile picture she'd choose for him. She had a handful of pictures of him, although the first few she'd had to argue with him over when he made to rip the camera out of her hands. Some of them were just his normally brooding self, to which he'd rolled his eyes after catching her taking them. While a few others she'd snapped while he was training- - -shirtless- - -in his skin tight shorts- - - that she secretly relished having. Oh, that butt. How she missed that butt. There were a few, however, that any _normal_ person would blanch at her having. Oh, yes, the Embarrassing, Shameful, Unattractive Photo that _everyone_ had. This one just happened to be Vegeta inhaling an extra large platter of takeout, lo mein dripping from his mouth while he yelled at her like a noodle-faced Cthulhu, the vein on his temple throbbing. It used to be a reward for her, the prize at the end of the fight that indicated she'd successfully gotten under his skin. He wasn't normally so ill mannered while he ate- -she kinda liked that about him- -but, in this case, she'd plucked a nerve. In her mind's eye, she always picked that one, and snickered.

So that picture was chosen without question. The bio, however, was the difficult part. Not the description- _-short, maniacal alien with a history of fratricide-_ -or the "Interests"- -_world domination, obsessing over brutally murdering the man who saved my life (not just once but twice)_, _kissing my biceps_- -or "Favorite Foods": _Pain_- - -but the following. The part about about what he looks for in a woman.

At this point, she wasn't even sure he swung her way. Why else would he have dropped her like she was hot and obsessed over her best guy friend? Bulma blew her bangs out of her face.

All (not so illegitimate) joking aside, what exactly had compelled him to kiss her in the first place? Not that she could blame anyone for wanting to. She was a pretty stunning and genius heiress, after all, and not even churlish aliens were immune to that. But of all the seemingly castrated, one-track-minded, nauseatingly-motivated men she'd met (and fallen for) in her lifetime, this one took the cake.

She remembered it like it was yesterday, her fingertips drawing across her lips in memory.

He'd just gotten out of the shower. Steam billowed through the hallway. He had a habit of taking scorchingly hot, quick showers.

She'd just gotten done folding laundry and was making her way down the hall to his room. They had a tenuous agreement about his personal space. She insisted, naturally, that he couldn't keep her out of her own house, while he demanded she at least keep her nose out of his stuff and make sure she keep his room tidied. It was a rule she'd been working on expanding.

As she opened his dresser drawers, placing his shorts and suits neatly into the fragrant cedar drawers before second guessing herself and deliberately tousling them with a smug smirk, she felt something- -oh, who was she kidding, she always knew when it was him- -behind her, and turned, lips parted.

He stood with his stupid impeccable posture, shoulders wide in the doorway. Sensing that he was the one with the upper hand, he smirked ominously at her. One hand gripped the knot of the towel wrapped around his waist, dangerously perched on the edge of his hips as if at any moment he could tug it off just to spite her.

"What do we have here? Come for the show?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please." She shut the drawer softly and folded her arms over her chest.

"Then get out. I've work to do."

Bulma emitted a not-so-attractive snort and looked at him with the practiced, bored amusement that usually caused him to get frustrated, giving her the win. "Yeah, working hard, I see." She crossed the room casually, but not before stopping to lean into his space, fully knowing that was the key- -always the key- -to disarming him. "Can't say that it's helping you get any taller, though."

The problem with Vegeta was that he always knew how to get directly _under her skin_.

"You'll find your bots on your father's desk," he stated. She froze. "I didn't even bother walking the few extra steps to throw them on your desk this time." He was nearly purring. "I demanded he work on them _immediately,_ and afterwards your mother fed me cake and served me tea."

Her eyes grew wider as his grin grew more dark.

She lost it. "Oh, you are _despicable_," she snarled.

"I invented the term."

She was so mad she could spit. "Under 'pathetic, stupid alien' and all other related synonyms in the dictionary, you'll find your picture!"

"Mmm. I plan on spending some private time admiring that picture tonight."

"Is this getting you off?" She drew back, balling her fists.

"If I didn't have much, _much_ more important things to do with my time, I might just spend the rest of my life making off-color jokes, even if they be beneath an elite such as I, just to watch you squirm. It would be_ endless_ satisfaction." His smirk grew toothier, sinisterly hovering like a crescent moon in her field of vision.

Her teeth grit. "Oh, yeah?" This is the part where her common sense stuttered momentarily, the part where she wondered, if she had just done or said something else, would any of this have ever happened? "Well." She hooked her finger in the knot of towel at Vegeta's waist and pulled lightly, creating a crevice that she peered into, down, down past the V of his lower abdomen at the juncture of his thighs below as Vegeta's face all at once slackened and then tightened with seething, _terrifying_ indignation.

She snapped the towel back in place and clucked her tongue, meeting his eyes again. "Can't say that I've seen smaller. At least we both agree that_ I_ would be endless satisfaction. You, on the other hand...will only be impressing your hand the rest of your life."

How did she walk away alive from that? She asked herself that sometimes.

It was only when she was halfway down the hallway that the levity of what she'd just done came crashing down on her, and she began to feel panicked. Vegeta must have been feeling something similar, because it didn't take him any time to catch up to her.

Abruptly, he was in her face, the indigo chroma of his ki energy crackling in the dark hallway.

"You'll pay for that."

"Do you take MasterCard?" She squeaked.

Oh, younger Bulma, she chided herself in her mind's eye. Always playing with fire, weren't you?

There was something about his hair when he just stepped out of the shower. Even though it was normally a bit wild, stretching upward, thick and coarse and blackest black, it wasn't necessarily untidy. When he'd been under the spray awhile and in a cloud of steam, the tufts became a bit weighted down and disheveled in a way that wasn't entirely unattractive. Who was she kidding, it was actually _really_ foxy. Sometimes he did things that sent a shock right to her lady parts, and she couldn't say when he grabbed her arm and pulled her close that it wasn't one of those times.

He bared his teeth down at her. Her belly flopped. Over and over, like it was trying to stop-drop-and-roll the panic spreading throughout her body.

To be fair, at this point he probably should have known that all he'd have to do is whisper "Boo" and she'd jump right out of her skin. Unfortunately for her, he wasn't exactly thinking clearly. If there were three things in his life that he could never really truly usurp, it was probably Frieza, Kakarot, and then Bulma. But especially Bulma.

And maybe that's why he kissed her.

His lips pressed against hers without warning, and her eyes widened even further, first staring at the wall behind him- -_Is this even real life?_- -before shooting to his face, where, to her total and absolute surprise, he was _kissing her_ with his _eyes closed_.

Her heart hammering in her chest, Bulma, frankly, had no idea what to do. For a breathless moment, she stood dumbly, lips pressed beneath his, arms dangling at her sides, his hand burning her upper arm.

She flinched when his eyes opened.

They were not the innocent eyes of a first date making his first move.

Under long, dark lashes, lids lowered fractionally with- -what was going on? was this...was this _desire_?- -his jet eyes peered up at her with dark promise.

Her mouth went dry.

Taunting eyes, so openly full of promise and dark potential that she could run through them for days, revealing somewhere inside him where a meadow of deep blue and black flowers lingered, where she could be seen twirling, falling into their feather-soft petals and where they would catch her weight.

She normally considered herself a smart, sensual woman, but in this case, she did not.

Bulma placed her hand over her hot, hot cheek, and just...turned, striding down the hall in a daze.

"Is that all you've got?" His voice reverberated softly down the hall.

Her feet came to a stop.

Her mouth was dry, her head was empty. She was speechless. The jerk had made her speechless.

"I see. So when I compare notes with your ex-boyfriend and tell him that I've had much, much better, do you think he will agree with me?"

She looked over her shoulder, blue curls whipping around with her.

"You wouldn't dare."

He laughed, and it was throaty, and arrogant.

"I beg to differ."

Her lips curled around her teeth. "You leave him out of this."

"Why? Nothing is off limits, in my book. Nothing...not even you."

She was striding right back up to his too-pleased face before she could have uttered _kamehameha_.

"Are you insinuating that this is some kind of game?" She hissed.

"Life is game," his cruel smile blossoming, "and anything is a chess piece. You are either the winner or the loser. And there can only be _one_ winner."

Her finger found its place against his bare sternum, warm and hard, her fingernail pricking it lightly.

"I will not be used in your completely sociopathic, absurd game," she spit.

He captured her hand in his own larger one, and his head tilted, a cheshire smile splitting his normally hard features.

"I will always remember that about you," he grieved, eyes bright with wickedness. "What a terrible kisser you were- -"

She gripped his chin and smashed her lips against his. His lips remained soft and unyielding, the warmth of his body and soap-smell wafting over her. Growling inaudibly, she pressed harder. She felt a laugh rumble up from his chest, and her eyes flicked up and met his own, smiling down at her devilishly.

Finally, his mouth parted slowly, temptingly, and gazing up at him, she traced his upper lip with her tongue.

Finally, and oh-so-dangerously she knew now with distance and clarity, the mischief in his gaze receded and was replaced by a rare depth.

"How dare you," she replied huskily into his mouth, his teeth against her lips, "you, you muscle-bound, stubborn, strapping jerk- -"

"Oh shut up," he muttered harshly before pulling her close, fisting his hand in her hair- -with care- -and finally, finally, their mouths parted together and their was an unheeded jolt of electricity that passed between them as their tongues met.

If she had the chance to go back in time and do things differently, would she? Well, obviously not, because she wouldn't trade Trunks for the world. Life had infinite purpose and meaningfulness now that he was keeping her on her toes, blowing up the living room with farts when she had company, drawing all the little old ladies out at the grocery store with his heartbreaker blue eyes and giggling uncontrollably every time she playfully nipped his toes. But if Trunks weren't part of it? If he wasn't a factor? Would she?

In the soft light of her lab, peering down at Vegeta, who sat, holding a photo that she thought was only dear to her, she had to reconsider. When Vegeta had first left her, when she realized he truly wasn't coming back for the birth, but only for Goku, always Goku, she would have replied yes. Yes, she wished it had never happened. Yes, she wished the mess he'd created of her heart and the lingering stain of her distrust of herself hadn't happened, she'd wished she'd been a stronger woman than that, that she hadn't been so driven by...whatever it was between them.

But now, as her hand floated down to rest delicately on his cheek, and rather than bat it away, which he'd done dozens of times before, he leaned into it, she had to revise her answer.

Maybe her life would have been less jumbled if she hadn't given into his taunting and kissed him that day. But there wouldn't be this thrum that he made inside her body, either, that filled her up, even when he took it away.

"Vegeta," she murmured softly. "If there's something that you want, just ask for it." His eyes flicked over her with suspicion, and she stuttered. _Don't patronize him, for Kami's _sake,_ don't patronize him! _She screamed at herself. "I mean, if you wanted a picture of...of Trunks, if that's all you wanted, I would have been glad to accommodate you."

He growled softly and tossed the picture onto her desk, turning away from her. "I don't want the damned picture."

She bristled. "Then why have you been down here messing with my stuff the last week?"

"What is it I'm supposed to be doing?" He snapped. "What is it that I'm _supposed_ to want?"

She stalled.

"I don't know," she said helplessly.

"I don't know either," he said snidely, standing, and in her heels, they were eye to eye. "Why am I even still here."

She felt a quick pang somewhere in her chest. "I really don't know," she mumbled weakly.

"What am I supposed to do with myself now?" He raised his voice, but she had the feeling he was talking more out loud to himself than her. "Retribution is all that has concerned me, ever. I have eaten at the plate of revenge for so long now that without it I have nothing to sustain me. I have trained for a moment time after time that never came. I have nothing to call my own except failure, and this feeling...what is this feeling," he bellowed, making her jump, her mouth sag with surprise. "This feeling that I have a goddamned conscience?" He was really yelling now, and her brows knit as she struggled to keep up with him.

"What's so bad about having a conscience? Okay, so you can't kill some guy that cuts you off in traffic and who didn't use his turn signal," she pointed out, shrugging. "That's not so bad. Should people really be punished for being foolish?"

He stared at her, searing.

"Ohhhhhkay, maybe _you_ think so. But there are other ways to solve problems, besides, you know, _murder_."

He was really starting to lose her, so she switched angles.

"Look," she huffed. "I'm not going to lecture you on ethics anymore. I'm no philosopher, anyway. Let's just agree to disagree. What I do know, is that you don't need to feel so terrible about all of this. You're putting so much weight on yourself for things that are out of your control. Focus on something else, Vegeta- -"

He snorted unkindly.

"- -because _obviously_ what you've been doing with your time is _not_ working." She finished with her teeth grit.

"What else is worth my time?" He scoffed.

"Uh, what about your _son_?" She was really losing her temper.

Once again, he laughed with contempt, but before she exploded on him, something in his dark eyes- -something which was connecting the dots right before her eyes- -caused her to stall.

"Shit, Vegeta!" She exclaimed, gesturing dramatically at the door. No one could say she wasn't trying to hold it together. "You've got a son just a few doors down from you that could use a guy like you in his life." It was like she was watching the gears move behind his eyes, and she...she was the one who was putting the puzzle together for him. It lit a fire underneath her. "Your son, who has all this potential, who could use your guidance." Maybe that was going a little too far.

"I am so tired of you telling me what to do," he snarled, but it truly seemed half hearted.

"I'm not telling you to do anything! I'm just trying to point out the obvious, which isn't that obvious evidently because you are completely blind to anything but yourself!"

"Why would I care more about someone more than myself?" He hollered back in a tone that was as genuinely baffled as it was disparaging.

This was an argument they'd had before. Often. Why should he care about someone more than himself, when he was the only one who could protect himself? The only one he could trust to make the right decision? They would never be able to build a bridge between their opposite upbringings, but if she could have empathy towards his, damnet, he could do the same for her.

"Because what's the point of life without other people? What's the point," her hands waved around her head as her eyes beseeched the heavens dramatically, "where is the enjoyment in a life totally closed off from friends and family? It winds up with you isolated, alienated, disillusioned, lacking purpose. Live a little. Jeez. I never thought the Prince of all Saiyans would be so scared of _living a little!_"

He snarled not unlike a wild animal, and not for the first time, she questioned the logic of the company she kept.

"Oh, quit acting like someone is keeping you here!" She finally shrieked. "Like the big, bad Prince of all Saiyans is being held hostage on Earth! You're not! You live with Earth's primary proponents of space travel. And yet _you're still here_!"

He got in her face. "You always forget your place!" They were nearly touching noses now, baring their teeth at one another.

They really aught to get a trophy for all the times they wound up like this. She would place it next to her Ph.D above her desk.

Suddenly, she just didn't feel like arguing anymore. "Maybe I just think the only thing you've failed at as a prince and a warrior is your failure to adjust," she said into his face bitterly. "You strut around like you can impose your worldview on everything. Here, our soldiers are taught that adaptability means everything in war. Why not bend the rules a little bit, Vegeta?" Her voice grew tired. "Why not try something new? You don't have to give up who you are just to experience something different every once in awhile."

He took a step back, folded his arms around his thick chest, hard gaze drilling a hole into the wall. "Nothing comes without a price."

"Maybe that price is worth it," she quipped, shrugging. "I don't know. I just follow where my happiness leads me. I'm no philosopher. I don't know if it's the right thing to do." She stood, and placed her hand supportively on Vegeta's shoulder. He tightened.

"I'm not asking you to love me," she whispered, eyes roaming over his face. "I just think all three of us would benefit by your presence. I'm not asking you to change. Just...just to consider staying. Not just for us. But for yourself."

She wished she would have realized sooner that when he admitted that day in his room that he would do things beneath himself for her, that there was something there, between them, that was more than just now-uncaged lust, and without anyone watching it, would just grow and grow and grow, until it was out of their control.

"I want to train him," he admitted gruffly, eyes swinging back to meet her own.

"I'll allow it." She smiled wanly. "All I ask is that you don't teach him to kill, or teach him to hate. Those are things that are better left to circumstance, am I right?"

The black eyes of destruction incarnate looked into hers, and shut with a sigh.

"Don't push me, woman."

She slid past him quietly.

"I'd never think of it."


	4. Chapter 4

She wasn't really sure how to handle this right now, but here her mother sat anyway, legs crossed at the ankle in front of Bulma's desk, trying to talk to Bulma- -about all things- -_dating_.

"Mom, I really don't have time for this right now," groaned Bulma, fingers chatting over the keyboard.

Trunks sat in his exersaucer, a little chair with toys jutting out every which way, spinning all around and smacking the colorful rattles with gusto. Bulma was thankful, actually, despite the asinine songs and animal sounds erupting from the thing every second. He was pretty distracted by the mess of toys in his line of sight, and at this point in her life, this particular level of clamor was just white-noise anymore.

"Of course you do, honey! A girl always has time for true love," her mother crooned with optimism, winking at her daughter.

"Ugh." Bulma's hands fell heavily onto her desk, palms up in helpless appeal, and finally turned her full attention on her mother.

"Don't give me that look, Bulma," her mother's high pitched, ooey-gooey voice chided.

She loved her mother, but sometimes it was very clear they were not cut from the same cloth.

"This is important. I want you to look through that stack of papers and give me at least twenty of your favorite profiles by tomorrow. Just leave the rest to me!"

"Mom." She gave her mom a heavy stare. She was _completely_ unamused. "I am not interested. Maybe someday I'll be, but I have way too much on my plate right now than to even _consider_ dating at the moment."

Her mother's face fell a little, but just as her glossy red mouth puckered to argue with her, Trunks hopped a little too enthusiastically, overcome with excitement by the plush monkey that hung from a toy banana tree, and slipped, knocking his head against the row of toys.

He looked to Bulma with teary eyes, mouth trembling.

Bulma dragged her body across the desk to slick his fine hair back from his face and cooed at him. "Aw, it's going to be alright, kiddo. You're gonna be just fine." Bulma beamed down at him.

Trunks, subdued by his mother's attention, found his thumb, and after a moment of its comfort he began cautiously bopping the plush monkey again.

Bunny stood, smoothing her short skirt. "Well, I guess, like usual, I can't make you do anything, dear. But I really think you should think on it. A girl like you will get bored before long without a man to entertain you!"

"Bleck." Bulma made a face.

"I'll remind you tomorrow!" Her mother called as she shut the door behind her, her face still hovering between the doorjamb and the door.

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered as the door finally clicked shut.

What was _wrong_ with that woman? Bulma's fingers briefly hammered out the rest of her email, before she sighed, and put her hands in her lap.

Her gaze drifted to Trunks, who was staring up at her expectantly.

"What's up, bud?" Bulma leaned forward again and swatted a toy, which burst into song, and waited for his reaction. All it earned was a small hop, and he was staring at her again. She sighed. "Alright. You're right. Let's blow this popsicle stand." Bulma stood and moved around the desk, drawing him from the exersaucer- -but not before giving him a few tugs and kicking it lightly before it finally gave him up. "Damned...exer...thing," she groused.

Her heels clacked against the marble floor as she exited her office, and she didn't even bother slowing as she passed her secretary. "I'm going out to lunch with Trunks. If anyone calls, send it to my voicemail!"

Used to Ms. Briefs' eccentric and erratic behavior, her secretary was already nodding, setting all calls to forward to her voicemail, watching Ms. Briefs small frame exit the room before returning to her Solitaire game.

\\\

Bulma rolled her eyes once again as the flash of a camera caused her to blink. She did her best to ignore it, spooning cake into Trunks' grubby mouth.

The little guy was nearly conked out, sweet potato smeared across his round face and full belly moving up and down with each increasingly tranquil breath.

Bulma wiped his face delicately with a napkin and brushed the stray hair from his eyes. Offhandedly, she wondered at its fine texture, at the wispy, pale lavender tuft that was growing fastest on the top of his head and finding its way more often than not into his eyes. What were the chances that Vegeta's spawn wouldn't get his obnoxious, tell-tale hair?

_We see whose genes are truly superior,_ she snorted.

Trunks was officially passed out, soft, pale lids shut fast.

Bulma sighed with a mixture of relief and, oddly, regret. She understood a too-rare nap from Trunks was like stealing time, but now, she just felt kind of alone.

Her fork cut through the cheesecake smoothly, and she pulled at it with her teeth before licking the fork clean. There was another flash, and Bulma bit the fork hard, reigning in her anger. _Well that's going to look real good on the front pages,_ she chastised herself, although a separate part of her wanted to turn around and strangle the paparazzo behind the hedges of the restaurant patio.

Younger Bulma would have preened for him. She would have stretched out her long, shapely legs and flipped her hair over her shoulder with a smoldering glare. Younger Bulma wanted all the attention, younger Bulma considered the front page a trophy.

Thirty-something Bulma had become a bit too much like Vegeta and was now entertaining the idea of murder.

She put down the fork, resting with a light clink on the delicate china, and leaned back in her seat, running her hands through her blunt blue bob before folding them behind her head and watching the clouds scutter across the late afternoon sky.

Who was this new, more mature Bulma, and what had she done with younger Bulma?

She couldn't believe her mother was pruning through online dating profiles to match her up with some hapless guy.

Well, yes, she could. Her love life was a shared space with her mother and always had been, and Bulma had spent quite a few years avoiding being long at home to sidestep it._ ("Are you there, Prince? It's me, Bulma...But please, please, please, let's meet at your place, not mine. Mine is being...fumigated.")_

What puzzled her was that she had thought her mother wanted her to continue trying to make it work with Vegeta, despite Bulma's protests. Had her mom caught on that they just were no longer a thing? That _maybe_ he had been gone for a year and a half? Bulma bristled. Knowing her mother, it probably had nothing to do with feeling defensive of how he'd treated her daughter. Her mother would forgive the guy anything; she doted on him. The platter of pancakes she'd left on the counter for him as Bulma had left for work was a testament to that.

Bulma stared hard at the sky above, birds trailing from one beautiful Japanese maple to the other and sketching across her purview.

Were they really no longer a thing? Part of her, the hard, jaded part of her, yelled _Hell yeah!_ But there was a quieter part of her that seemed more hesitant. _Let him go, girl,_ the jaded half spat, to which the other half of her stuck out its tongue.

Was she maybe still getting over him? Recovering from him, like a train that crashed into her heart, with no one else but her to dampen the fires and clean up the rubble?

Her nose wrinkled. She didn't like to think of herself as bruised by him. She considered herself self-sufficient and bulletproof. Bulma sniffed and folded her arms over her chest this time, frowning lightly. Okay, maybe she was being a little unrealistic.

It wasn't that she was angry with her mother for all the "help." Really. Her mother was very hands off with parenting, much more of a girl friend than a parent. Just the way Bulma had liked it as a teenager. And since she still lived at home, she appreciated the space as an adult. Except when it came to men- -and then her mother was _very_ hands on.

Bulma wasn't frustrated with her mother's usual antics so much as just frustrated with the idea that a man was the Elmer's glue for all this mess. Bulma didn't need a man as a financial caretaker, because Bulma was a rich heiress. But she also worked hard for her money, now that she was filling in for her father, who was slowly and quietly retiring from his company. She also didn't need a man just because she needed to fill a hole in her heart or something, or to give her something to do. She didn't need another chore, courting some money-hungry, starry-eyed sap, lacking the lash-quick tongue and razor-sharp mind that turned her on so much with Vegeta. She had Trunks, she had her parents, and she had good friends...even if the Androids and the Cell Games had really put a damper on their time together, she thought with some melancholy, thinking of Goku.

Bulma picked up her fork, frowning deeper, and took another bite, growing annoyed with the whole thing.

Part of this was just growing up, maybe, and maybe she just needed to come to grips with getting older. She really didn't mind the physically-getting-older-part. She had always pictured herself getting only more glamorous with age, and that hadn't changed. High heels, pearls, a commanding air, many covers of Vogue, a fashion icon. It was just...what bothered her about it all, it was only...just...

Was it just that she wasn't ready to leave Vegeta behind yet?

She thought she was over him. _She really had._ He'd left her for a year without a care in the world, left her while she was pregnant with his child, and then ignored them completely when he'd returned! If that wasn't a sign to get the hell out of the relationship, she didn't know what was.

But since their chat last week...though he was probably loathe to consider it a 'chat'...she'd felt less sure, and more ruminating. Damnet! It was stupid- -his staying at Capsule Corp wouldn't change anything, wouldn't change the fact that he didn't want or wasn't capable of being a team player with her in this parenting thing. And yet, STUPIDLY, like a daydreamy, teenaged girl, she was entertaining the question, _"What if?"_

She had to be real with herself.

And if she were real with herself, she'd admit that the man she found desirable when she was a teenager living in a teenaged daydream did _not_ have the qualities that were up to snuff in a real, grown up relationship. A man who was tall (okay, maybe not so tall), dark and handsome, the kind of man that women loved to feel like they could 'fix,' a real tortured, emotionally neglected, damaged type, was not conducive to her life anymore.

So, she fell for bad boys. Okay, she could admit that. But what girl didn't like a bad boy? She suddenly imagined Vegeta in leather, and snickered. And then shut up, because he was kind of hot in all that leather.

But her mom was right...Bulma didn't have the patience for good guys. They were white bread, they were dull, they were a snooze. Regular guys, once in her presence, were doomed. Ill-fated, star-crossed, and destroyed by her stiletto heel and her sharp tongue. By the time they'd sat down and ordered a glass of wine, she'd figured them out.

Boooooo-ring.

Vegeta was not a regular guy, but it also wasn't exactly emotionally healthy to even be approximately ten feet in his diameter.

Vegeta was a guy who, when confronted by his own emotional instability or physical limits- -like, every day- -it was _her_ fault that he wasn't progressing, that he wasn't making gains, that his focus was slippery. Defined in a completely ass backward way, because, if anything, _he_ brought the crazy, and _she_ brought the stability. It was always her fault, her 'fluffy' ethics, which demanded he live a sensible life like a Kami-damned adult; she was fucking with his integrity when she suggested he loosen up. Everything would just be normal and right once he had his boot heel on Kakarot's neck and the masses were chanting his name. That was _normalcy_ to Vegeta. That was the dream- -not her.

There she'd been, after the hot nights panting against each other, pulling at lips with each other's teeth and tugging at each other's hair slickly, and, oops, here comes the sun, and suddenly, there she was, messing up all of his plans.

There was no future in that. That was one-night-stand stuff, that was get-the-hell-out-of-there-quick stuff. Because what happens with guys like him? Smart, sexy, tortured guys? Flash ahead, five, ten years into the future, if he were like any other self involved Earthling guy: He'd still be going to film school and working odd jobs, while she worked nights to hold it all together. Then he maybe decides one day that the industry is bullshit, so now he's getting a PhD in philosophy, theoretically, except mostly he just smokes pot and speaks in abstractions. And theorizes. And analyzes. And criticizes. And she is in her thirties and would very much like to think of having a family but he says he needs to be in a very, very different place in his life before he even considers such a wild and crazy far-away fantasy world.

That was reality to Vegeta: _such a wild and crazy far-away fantasy world._

If Vegeta were remotely human, that's the kind of conceited jerk he'd be: as realistic and future-focused as a plastic bag that floats around in advance of a snowstorm for fifteen minutes straight, and then just sits on the ground getting soggy the rest of the time. He'd be no good for anything real adult life. He does look really beautiful, floating around. But even still.

For Vegeta, floating- -or being self-absorbed- -started out as a way of finding himself and feeling in control. It was sexy when he first got to Earth! But now floating was just a giant excuse for not settling down yet. It's an excuse to blast off from a relationship the very first second he feels vaguely dissatisfied, never giving his own issues a second glance.

Back when they were seeing each other, even if it was behind closed doors, he was needy, even if she was the only one who could see it. And serious, and future-thinking in his own way, and maybe she felt like someone like that could see the future between she and him. (A future with her cleaning up all his shit, of course.) When a guy is serious, and intense, when there's friction and passion, it's like lady catnip, but really that kind of guy is just a self-centered overly-obsessive slithering self-adoring plastic bag.

The beautiful eyes, tortured life, moody morsel of perfection that was the man she'd wound up with one way or another was totally _impractical_. Now that she was a mother, now that her father was handing her the reigns to his corporate giant, she saw the world through different eyes. And mature Bulma knew there was no future in that. In five, ten years, she'd be on Vogue in a scarlet, deep cut V-neck dress and big fur coat hanging off her round shoulders- -OWNER OF CAPSULE CORP BARES ALL ON HER RUN FOR THE PRESIDENCY- -and he'd still be chasing after his ghosts. And despite all her successes, despite her deep yearning for his approval, it would never be about her; it would _always_ be about him.

If she had learned anything with Yamcha, it was that she had expectations in a relationship, and that it was okay to have expectations. For instance. She learned that she expects her man not to be a philanderer, and that's a totally legitimate expectation. But she also learned things like, when to call it quits (although that took a _long_ time to figure out), when to stand up for herself, when they were better off as friends, when the romance had died out and all that remained was the shell of what once had been. Some boys looked for a woman like they were looking for something to hang on their wall, like they were interior designers, seeking not to have a valuable back-and-forth with a client, but only to add to their portfolio.

She sighed, realizing she'd started to wax _real_ morose. In response, Trunks sighed in his sleep, shifting his little balled up fists next to his head and resettling into sleep. The corners of her mouth turned up softly. She pushed the plate to the side, finished, and as if on cue, a server appeared at her side and silently removed her half eaten cheesecake.

As he turned away, Bulma stopped him.

"Sir?"

The young man halted, looking cowed. "Yes, Ms. Briefs?"

Bulma threw her thumb behind her, gesturing at the paparazzo hovering in the bushes not-so-stealthily.

"Get him out of here."

"Y-y-yes ma'am. Right away."

As a group of bodyguards spilled out from the cafe (the restaurant used to fielding celebrities) and advanced on the snoop who was already trying to dash out of the bushes, Bulma sipped her glass of water, the lemon wedge floating between ice cubes and the glass slippery in her fingers with the summer heat.

There was all sorts of potential for chaos with Vegeta staying with them, and asking him to stay maybe wasn't that practical of an idea. But she'd had a gut reaction, a hunch as he sat there sulking in her office chair, and Bulma always followed her heart, even if it led her to stupid, dangerous places, even though she was mature Bulma now, and should know better.

There was scuffling behind her, and Bulma lit a cigarette even as the sound of a camera thudded dully on the ground.

She didn't care if he was the Prince of all Saiyans. She didn't care if maybe she wasn't over him. She didn't care if maybe he was permanently dysfunctional. This time she was getting what she wanted, and by Kami, she would have a partner in this somehow.

* * *

I'm having a lot of fun writing this, as much fun as you are having reading it. Right? _Right!?_ Hopefully it didn't get too heavy for you. But in order to properly do a 7 year gap, one can't leave out the gritty bits, right? I never know if I'm overdoing the drama or the comedy, but if I'm overdoing both, I've covered all my bases, amiright? I'm writing this fic on the spot- -as in, I've given it almost no forethought. It's a bit of an experiment as I drink my coffee in the morning, so stick with me. I pretty much write each chapter in a day and pass it on to you. Hopefully I don't write myself into a hole.

Next chapter up real soon.


	5. Chapter 5

"There's this one...and this one...and, ooh, what about this one?"

Bulma and her mother were sitting knee deep in piles of online dating profile printouts, and Bunny was struggling to keep up with all of those that Bulma had replied "meh" to. Those were the "Yes's." Luckily, there were dishes spilling over with pastries scattered among the mess, and Bulma plucked one from the platter beside her and popped it into her mouth.

Bulma took the piece of paper from her mother lazily and pretended to glance at it. Then came to a halt. "Oooh, this one's a keeper." She thrust the paper into her mother's face as Bunny's eyes grew wide with excitement. Before her mother could get her hopes up any farther, she burst into laughter. "Look at that mustache. Why would you even put that one in there?"

Bunny frowned, well-shaped brows arching. "Well, _excuse_ me. I just printed off all of the online profiles for West City, is all. Don't hold it against me."

"You did what?" Bulma's eyes bulged. "Well, that explains why we're sitting in a heap of paper."

"If you just picked one, we could get up and be done with it!" Bunny's mouth twisted down with despair.

Bulma couldn't help it- -she smiled wide. "Oh, Mom. You poor thing." She sighed and rolled her eyes, still smirking. "Give me the next one."

Bunny held out a sheet of paper, and Bulma took it, looking at it with one eyebrow arched with feigned consideration.

"Let's see." Her blue eyes ran over the text. "Male. 33. Works downtown at the Bloch Building. Hometown: East City." She cast a doubting look at mother. Her mother gestured at her to go on. "His profile picture...oh Kami, can't believe I'm doing this...I guess...he's kind of handsome?" Bunny's face lit up, and Bulma immediately regretted her concession.

"As handsome as Vegeta?" Bunny whispered coyly.

"Oh, Mom!" Bulma yelled, throwing the paper at Bunny in a fit of impatience.

The paper was snatched out of the air between them, and both of the women looked up in surprise, before their mouths dropped in horror.

Vegeta stared down at them from his nose, gripping the paper. Slowly, with painful deliberateness, Vegeta unfurled the paper and scanned the body of text. Bulma clapped her hands over her cheeks in embarrassment.

Vegeta's face scrunched up with confusion. "What is this?"

"Nothing," Bulma and Bunny answered in small voices.

Vegeta's eyes narrowed at the women, before tossing the paper, where it floated down to rest on the pile sprawled between them.

As he turned away, the women shared a quick look, but Vegeta's gruff voice penetrated their sinking relief.

"You could do much better."

He opened the fridge, turning his back on the women to scour the fridge for food.

Bulma's fingers inched up her face to hide the scarlet blush creeping up her cheeks, but her fingers parted just in time for her to peer between them and see her mother's eyes sparkled with secret mirth.

As the Saiyan shuffled through items in the fridge, Bunny leaned forward. "Just when were you going to tell me he was staying with us?" Her mother chastised in a whisper, looking, somehow, both horrified and jubilant.

"You didn't know?" Bulma's voice was muffled in her hands. "He's been back for a few weeks now."

"I haven't seen him since before Trunksie was born!" Bunny cried softly.

Bulma sneered. "Oh, you just now figured out he's been gone all this time?"

"Well, why didn't you say so! Why are we even looking at all these, then, anyway?"

"Because," she hissed, "Vegeta and I are _not_ together."

"Well why on Earth not?" Bunny's voice rose petulantly.

"Because," Bulma growled as quietly as sanely possible, "we're not!"

"That's silly!" Her mother exclaimed, clapping her hands together wistfully. "You guys were made for each other!"

"WE WERE NOT!" Bulma shot upwards to her feet, just as Trunks emerged from underneath a pile of papers.

Three sets of eyes were on her. She fumed, growing redder with embarrassment. "Excuse me," she said through clenched teeth as she turned on her heel and made her way out the front door.

She wasn't even aware she was stomping until she'd reached the separate dome that held her father's pets and her mother's gardens, and once she realized she was making an ass of herself, marching around in a huff, she forced her legs to walk more naturally.

She threw the door open and made her way through the thick foliage, heading toward the greenhouse at the heart of the building, where a number of exotic flowers and succulents thrived under her mother's care.

Now that she was inside the thick, balmy silence of the dome, she had a moment to feel really, _really_ stupid. _Whyyyyyy_ did she just cut and run like that? In front of _him_, for Kami's sake? She had a duty to herself and Trunks to be as in control around him as humanly possible. Maybe her belief that she'd grown up was a _bit_ premature.

"Stupid, stupid," she muttered, slumping into a bench beside the koi pond, her head falling into her hand.

"I believe this is yours."

She startled, and with increasing dread, looked up at the man she knew to be standing in front of her.

And came face to face with baby Trunks, who dangled upside down in front of her, though looking absolutely delighted by it.

Her hands shot out and grabbed him, turning him around and squeezing him to her. "You can't hold a baby upside down," she admonished Vegeta.

"I just did." His face was placid, but his voice carried the edge of sarcasm.

"Well, all the blood could have gone to his head, and he could have gotten really...light headed," she finished obtusely.

It was Vegeta's turn to roll his eyes. "He's half Saiyan. I could have held him there for a year and he'd still be kicking."

"Ugh." She plopped Trunks on her lap firmly and gave Vegeta a dirty look. "Men."

Vegeta crossed his arms over his chest and looked sidelong at her.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Bulma broke it clumsily. "Thank you?" She issued lamely. "For, uh, bringing me Trunks?"

Vegeta snorted and sprung upwards, floating. "Spare me." He flew leisurely above the garden and through the foliage until he was out of sight.

She watched him go with wry acceptance. Bulma once again hung her head into her palms. "What is wrong with me."

A chubby fist wrapped around a tuft of her hair and pulled, hard. Tears sprung to her eyes.

"Ow!" She complained, looking at Trunks aggrieved. "Now you're ganging up on me, too?"

Trunks gave her a hard look, and she sighed, turning her chin on her palm away from him morosely.

And then her eyes widened.

Her head whipped back around to Trunks. "You know what?" She asked, filled with wonder. "That's the first time your father's ever held you!" A smile stretched across Bulma's face. She began bouncing Trunks on her knee giddily. "Yay!" She squealed, and the peal of Trunks' giggles filled the greenhouse.

\\\\

She'd ordered out for dinner, shared her pizza with Trunks alone in the dining room, and then got him into the bath, the water shaded red with pizza sauce. How did babies get so messy so easily? Once she'd wiped sauce from between all his rolls and lathered the hair on his head, she wrapped him up in his froggy towel and carried him into her sitting room on her hip, the tv the only light flickering in the dark room.

Each small limb carefully tugged through the armholes and legholes of his pajamas, and then Bulma kissed his impossibly soft cheek as her nimble fingers snapped the last button. She crossed her legs and rocked him back and forth in the dark, the sound of the movie at a hush, until he fell asleep heavily, cupped against her chest.

Carefully, OH SO carefully, she carried him to the crib in the nursery and planted him softly onto the sheets, small printed elephants silently trumpeting his arrival. She thanked Kami a dozen times that he didn't wake up- -a truly once in a lifetime happening- -and closed the door to his room softly.

She made her way carefully back to her room in the dark hallway and ambled into her sitting room, settling into the couch in a sprawl.

Her tv flashed in the dark, but she didn't pay it much attention. Her eyelids fluttered drowsily, her toes digging deeper into the blanket piled at her feet. The events on the tv grew distant, and as her lids fluttered heavily their last few times, a silhouette emerged from the shadows.

She felt surreally that, if she followed, the shadow would lead her into the sleep that she knew was coming, but as it approached her, pulling from the dark and substantiating in front of her, her eyelids popped open and she bolted upright. She threw herself back instinctively, nearly climbing the back of the couch.

Only now did she recognize the figure's hair.

"Vegeta!" She cried shrilly. "What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?! Can't you knock like a normal person?"

A defensive harrumph was her only answer before the figure advanced into the light, obscuring her view of the tv.

"Pitiful." He clucked his tongue. "I've watched blades of grass under my boots cower less than you."

"Oh, can it!" She chucked a throw pillow in his direction, which bounced weakly off his knees.

He was stubbornly solid in front of her.

She groused and settled back on the couch on her butt, folding her arms over her chest. Possibly pouting.

"Let's not beat around the bushes anymore," he issued suddenly. "I am staying here on Earth. I will be training Trunks in my style of martial arts and defense. We need to set some ground rules."

Her eyes widened. Suddenly, her mouth twisted in a warped sneer. "Oh, you will be setting the ground rules, huh? Oh, do tell."

"Whatever happened between us is of little importance. You may continue being the boy's caretaker, but I will govern how he is trained in survivability. No one else."

Bulma felt steam erupt from her ears.

She shot upwards and crossed the distance between them. "How _dare_ you!"

She was _beyond_ fuming.

"You have some nerve abandoning him before he was born, and _then_ expecting us all to take care of you again, and then demanding that you have _ANY_ rights over him!"

"He's an heir to the Saiyan legacy, and he will be brought up as one!"

"What, because it's convenient for you now? Because you have nothing else better to do?" She lambasted him. He flinched slightly, and she knew she'd hit a nerve.

Naturally, she kept poking. "If you think for even a second that I will allow you to come in my house and dictate to me how I should act and who will and won't be interacting with my son, you have another thing coming!"

Vegeta was really simmering now. "I am the Prince-"

"Of no one!" She hollered. "Now that Goku is gone, there is _no one_ you lord over. _Especially_ me and my son."

Aaaaaaand he looked scary angry now.

"You overstep your bounds," he issued dangerously.

"Look at me! I'm overstepping my bounds!" Bulma stamped her foot out erratically.

Vegeta shook with anger.

"What happened between us can't just be erased, Vegeta! You can't just stomp it out like you stomp everything else out of existence! I'm here, and Trunks was born of it, and now, for once, you have to deal with it."

He clenched his fist, leaning forward furiously. "I could blast you for talking to me this way."

This was the first time he'd ever threatened her. There had been many, many arguments, but he'd never raised a hand to her.

"Will you?" She opened her arms wide. "Would you?"

His gloved fingers were clenched hard at his hips, and his teeth glinted in the low light.

"Your only solution to everything is to kill it. Why not me, too?"

"CAN'T YOU SEE I AM TRYING SOMETHING NEW?"

His right hand fisted over his heart, and his face twisted with anger and anguish.

"I am trying to do the 'right' thing, and still, you punish me for it!"

Bulma felt embarrassment creep up on her. "You can't just make demands of me, Vegeta," she explained, confused. "You should have realized that already."

"Then why do you think you can hold me, of _all_ people, to different rules?"

"Because you left me, Vegeta!" She cried. Finally, she couldn't mask the pain with anger any longer. "You just discarded me like I was some one night encounter, like I could have been any woman. And _right after_ we'd learned I was carrying your child. I was wide open and vulnerable, and of course, you saw that and hit me where it hurts." She was snarling now, tears pooling in her vision. "It was your child, Vegeta. No one else's. Yours. Because I may have not meant anything to you, but you somehow became _my life_ before you left. Everything I did was for you. The bots, the maintenance to the GR, your laundry, your food. I didn't do it because I felt obligated, I didn't even necessarily do it to help save all our hides- -I did it for you. Stupidly, I thought your fondness for me meant that you appreciated me. And then you just left me. You abandoned him. I have every right to make demands of you. You have no power here anymore. You gave it up the day you left."

Oh, Kami, she didn't mean to lose control like this. She felt the hot tears make their obstinate paths down her cheeks, and brushed them away impatiently. "You are so blind to anything but your own feelings," she sniffled. "I just want you to acknowledge mine, for once."

Vegeta stood in front of her, watching, but she couldn't determine his expression, warbling in her teary vision.

"I may not have anything else to do," he finally admitted, low. "But I...I..."

Her mouth parted, face twisting with unknown desires, waiting.

"...I need to do it. Can you not torture me about it?"

His profile was lit up in the stark monochrome of the tv, sharp features contoured on one side of his face, the other half in the dark.

She stared up at him and bit her lip. "Then let's set some ground rules," she finally whispered. "I will be considerate of your...space, and experiences, if you can be considerate of mine."

They stared at one another in the dark, awkwardly, pensively.

She exhaled deeply. She wrapped her arms around herself and looked at him plaintively. "Maybe what we had...is over. But if you're going to, going to stay, then we will have to talk to one another sometimes. And...we should probably act respectfully toward one another."

His lips, the lips she once thought beautiful, were full, but flat and masculine, and they straightened from their curl, and under his long lashes she saw she had his full attention.

Was this really as much as they could say to one another without fighting? Bulma experienced a hollow pain, conflicted. They couldn't even get past hello anymore. How had something ever had room to grow between them in the first place?

She aBulma's unwavering optimism tried to ratchet down the tension. "Maybe we should learn to just be in the same room, huh?" She smiled sheepishly. "Today has been a hard lesson in that."

She angled her face up towards his, waiting, but he didn't give anything away. He was shut up tight. She sighed through her nose.

"Vegeta...please sit down." She gestured at the couch. "Let's start this right now, shall we? Sit, and we'll practice being in the same room together. I'll even let you pick the movie."

She could see his restraint wavering, so she grabbed his wrist, and pulled.

He didn't budge, but then again, she wasn't expecting to do anything but make her point. The glove felt familiarly silky beneath her touch.

"Please," she asked solidly.

They stared at one another in the darkness, measuring the other, measuring the wisdom of it.

Finally, Vegeta pulled away from her hand, looking askant at the tv.

She knew he was going to decline. Did he feel that uncomfortable being around her? Was it because he...didn't want to lead her on?

With resolve, she moved around him, placed her hands on his shoulder blades, and pushed.

"What are you doing?" He asked incredulously over his shoulder.

"I won't break out the booze, because we both know where that leads," she said, smiling wryly, but pushing once more. She thought she saw him blush, but probably imagined it. "But you need to sit down and pick a movie before I get angry with you again." He wasn't budging, but he looked awfully disturbed, so she moved to his side, squeezing his arm encouragingly. He looked at her nervously.

"Just as friends, Vegeta. Watch a movie with a friend. Unless you'd rather keep this 'business professional?'" She cleared her throat of any note of disappointment.

His skin under her hand was warm and smooth, and she dropped her hand suddenly, realizing she'd made them both uneasy, touching him.

"I don't think it wise." He stepped away from her and was already at the door. "I will take the boy tomorrow afternoon." His tone was as deferential to her as it would get.

She didn't know why she felt so uncomfortable and melancholy, but she did.

"Okay," she answered faintly. "Sorry."

He turned a bit toward her at her tone, pausing, before he closed the door behind himself.

Bulma fell into the couch cushions and dropped her forehead into her palm. "Stupid," she admonished herself, tangled up in feelings, feelings, and more feelings. Where had they all come from?


End file.
